The latest creative endeavors of Chicago-based artist Nick Cave—who has long seamlessly woven dance, music, sculpture, and video into a single compelling oeuvre—are more than blanketing New York City at the moment. The historic Park Avenue Armory is currently hosting Cave’s The Let Go, which features dance, singers, kinetic sculpture, costumed figures, and live DJs staged in its Drill Hall, which is just shy of the size of an entire football field. In Chelsea, the Jack Shainman Gallery is featuring Nick Cave: Weather or Not, while nearby the artist and Bob Faust collaborated on a dazzling mural, These Bags We Carry Are Filled with Promise, for New York Live Arts. As if all of that’s not enough, Nashville's Frist Art Museum is showcasing Nick Cave: Feat. Nashville, devoted to both an exhibition and performances.

Come autumn, the Sydney-based nonprofit arts center Carriageworks will feature Cave's Until, which had been at MASS MoCA and clocked in at 22,000 square feet—the artist’s largest installation to date. Later, Until will land at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.

The artist in front of one of his works.

Photo: Courtesy of Nick Cave

Above all, these exhibitions and performances incorporate Cave’s trademark artistic statement about racial unrest and gun violence. In conjuring up that message early on, Cave, 59, created an innovative form: wearable sculpture. His Soundsuits—some of which tower eight feet tall and are festooned with sequins and buttons—are meant to mimic a kind of Technicolor armor, concealing race, gender, and class.

AD sat down with the artist, who initially trained with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, to a glean a greater understanding of his work.

Architectural Digest: Your idiosyncratic Soundsuits are remarkably complex. When and why did you first begin creating them?

Nick Cave: My Soundsuit series commenced in 1992, coinciding with the LAPD beating of Rodney King and the ensuing riots. My practice revolves around uplifting and reifying otherwise distressed bodies, which is the core purpose of the Soundsuit. The first Soundsuit was made of twigs found in Chicago's Grant Park.

AD: For your show in Chelsea, the abstract patterns of your wire tondos reference computer-generated maps of catastrophic weather and brain scans of black youth suffering P.T.S.D. due to gun violence. How did you create that work?

Nick Cave: Weather or Not at Jack Shainman Gallery in Chelsea.

Photo: Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery

NC: The wire threads are hand-woven and individually beaded through a wire-mesh fabric. This is then stretched atop a sequined fabric base layer supported by a wooden structure.

AD: You collaborated with Bob Faust on the New York Live Arts’s memorizing 31-foot-long mural comprised of images of Soundsuits constructed from plastic bags. Why did you take on those ubiquitous bags?

These Bags We Carry Are Filled with Promise at New York Live Arts, a collaboration between Cave and artist Bob Faust.

Photo: Ian Douglas

NC: For These Bags We Carry Are Filled with Promise we wanted to turn the idea of baggage into a positive, making weight buoyant.

AD: Can you tell us about your November show at Jack Shainman Gallery?

The Until exhibit opening at MASS MoCA.

Photo: Douglas Mason

NC:If a Tree Falls continues my work around topics surrounding racism. I often think about what my work would look like if this issue subsided or was not part of my everyday existence. But, unfortunately, that is not the case and it is more present today than when I made my first Soundsuit in response to the Rodney King beating.

FOLLOW US

Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 5/25/18) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated 5/25/18). Architectural Digest may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Your California Privacy Rights The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices